Food for Thought: Empathy Tableware Design for Diabetes Family

UX designer at BBC, based in London, UK

Food for Thought: Empathy Tableware Design for Diabetes Family

UX Design & Research
Final Major Project, MAUX, UAL
Jul, 2019-Dec, 2019, London

Intro

Change in diet can make diabetes patients feel marginalised when the family does not adapt its eating habits to the patient’s dietary needs and restrictions. Patients sometimes need to control food intake to maintain disease management, but they don't want to affect the dining atmosphere in their family. Therefore, this project is exploring how to reduce the inequality and emotional stress that people with diabetes can feel in the family dining environment, creating an empathetic family dining atmosphere.

By designing the appearance of the plate very similar, including the height and size, while the depth of the plate is changed, thereby concealing the food intake consumed for diabetes patients. Through such an empathetic design, patients would feel that there was no difference between themselves and their families when eating while still choosing to control their food portions, and their families would not need to adjust themselves too much in terms of changing their diet.

In-depth interviews

With the help of the internet and the Lambeth & Southwark Diabetes UK Group, I finally got patients who would like to participate in my project from USA/Russia/Arabia/Chinese family. My sample includes3 Type one diabetes patients, 11 Type two diabetes patients and 4people who are in diabetes family.

“I need to understand what I need to do, how many insulin, unit, cals. Just count. My life is like a calculator.” (Lucy, Type 1 diabetes patient)

"The food control would cause everyone's unhappiness when you eating out with others, so it is meaningless. No matter what happens, to maintain a happy life, and social social interaction can be carried out normally will be more necessary than to cause other people's unhappiness.” (Dan, Type 2 diabetes patient)

“Patient are all human being, even they know they can’t do something, people will still cheating sometimes. ” (June, Type 2 diabetes patient)

Analysis and findings

I transcribed the interviews conducted with my samples and I used coding analysis to assist me in classifying the problems and opportunities. These interviews showed an unequal dinning atmosphere in diabetes family also exist because of this disease.

Here are some key painpoints:

Food can be a significant source of stress for diabetes patients in their everyday lives.

Diabetes can destroy the harmony of the patient's body and interfere with the patient's family and social life.

Patients tend to put the most pressure on themselves most of the time, rather than sharing the burden. When they are using diet to control their situation, they usually do not want to disturb others’ eating habits.

Idea testings

Based on my research, I developed different user storyboards for idea testing. I talked with five diabetes patients about my design concept with the storyboards I drew. Three of them show interest in the tableware ideas. They also suggested focusing on the food portion and their diet, like the green food label.

Conversation with them makes me realize that if I want to focus on emotional design, I should start with family relationships. I chose to focused on the family mealtime and to explore whether I can find any design opportunity or not.

Prototyping

I firstly designed a food container with varying depths. When patients and their families shared food from the same bowl, the differences in depth could distinguish the different portion sizes. Through this design, the patients would feel that they were eating the same food as their family members, although their portions were not the same. To test this idea, I created a 3D model using Rhinoceros.

Testing

To get real feedback, I used 3D printing to create a prototype of my bowl and took it to a Lambeth and Southwark Diabetes UK Group meeting to test it. I talked to them individually (a total of 12 people), and it seemed that they could understand my design idea well. Most of them expressed that they thought this design was straightforward and may work for them.

However, some said they usually eat food with a small plate or partition plate to control the food potion. Some care about the function and price, as if it is microwave-safe and affordable. The size of my bowl maybe a bit small also be mentioned. Their feedback encouraged me to go through my potion tableware idea and narrow it down.

Improvements and iterations

“Somewhat similar and somewhat different”

Based on my interviews, I investigated the dining culture and eating habits of British people more carefully and produced my second prototype. I designed two plates that were very similar in size, height and appearance, producing them using 3D printing. The only difference between them was their depth, which meant that they could hold different amounts of food. However, when they were filled with food, they looked very similar.

Through such an empathetic design, patients would feel that there was no difference between themselves and their families when eating while still choosing to control their food portions, and their families would not need to adjust themselves too much in terms of changing their diet.

Exhibition

This project was displayed as a part of the 2019 postgraduate show of London Collage of Communication, University of the Arts London.

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